What has the Left been up to? A few examples.

What has the Left been up to? They are becoming more radical and deranged.

For example, the inimitable Maxine Waters (D-CA) is calling on those who are susceptible, incredibly, to listen to her to harass and insult and attack publicly anyone whom they see who works for the Trump administration. In effect, she is inciting mob violence.

This was carried out in a couple ways over the weekend. The White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant because of her association with Pres. Trump. HERE Also in that coverage, there is video of idiots attacking the HHS Secretary in a restaurant. Moreover, over the weekend the AG of Florida was attacked at a movie theater where she was trying to see the documentary about Mr. Rogers. HERE Apparently she was also spat upon, which – I remind the readers – is technically an assault. Nitwits at ground zero for nitwitiness, Portland, are protesting ICE, shouting obscenities and loony phrases about “f****** Nazis”.

The Left, ladies and gentlemen.

And there’s more.

Speaking of Nazis, Massimo “Beans” Faggioli has been tweeting.

Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler and the United States is not Nazi Germany. But there are similarities, including the deep intra-ecclesial polarization on political issues and the risk of complacency towards a perverted theology of Christian ethno-nationalism.

Surrrrrrre he doesn’t think that Trump is like Hitler. And where is he hanging out that he is so worried about “Christian ethno-nationalism”. Once again, a straw man.

More from Beans…

Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler and the United States is not Nazi Germany. But the time has come for something like a “Barmen Declaration” (1934) for the churches and religious communities in America. https://t.co/d4oV399jOy

Perhaps he would be more comfortable in the ecclesial and political climate of his native land.

Faggioli is mostly a verbal bomb thrower: he launches these hyperbolic grenades around to get attention. On the other hand, historically, over there they’ve hardly ever met a dictator that they didn’t embrace.

Turning to another corner of the Left, homosexualist activist Jesuit James Martin tweeted:

I hope everyone reads today’s Psalm (139), and remembers that God created them as they are, especially any LGBT youth who doubt this:

“It was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made.”#Pridepic.twitter.com/jpQNp7xRwn

Did you get that? God created homosexuals as they are. In other words, God intentionally made them to desire to have sex with members of the same sex. That would put sodomy on par with normal sexual relations, which is patently absurd.

This is scandalous, because the people whom he addresses may take his falsehood to be permission – from an authority figure in the Church – to commit sodomy.

No. This is nothing short of pernicious.

Homosexual inclinations are disordered. God made all of us. Therefore we are all good. He made us to live virtuous lives and to seek the Truth. God foresees that some people will have this flaw or that defect or some problem or other. However, these very problems, while not willed by God, are foreseen by God as possible means by which people can reach the joy of heaven. By striving for holiness and by offering the suffering that results from saying “No!” to a disordered desire, people can receive great graces and set good examples for their neighbors out of charity.

The Left is on the move, almost as if being fueled and aimed by invisible hands and hissing whispers.

UPDATE:

As a perfect segue from my last point, above, here comes the Wile E. Coyote of the catholic Left, Michael Sean Winters, professional Trump hater. He reacted to videos of Trump:

But rewind that videotape and close your eyes. Listen to the rhetorical cadences. They strike me as the linguistic equivalent of the body language thatIl Duce would employ on the loggia of the Palazzo Venezia, the arms crossed on his chest, the chin thrust forward, the arms placed firmly on the balustrade, the bobbing of the head, the powerful gesticulation with the full arm. If you set that to music, you get Wagner. If you set it to words, you get Trump explaining his position on immigration. [Wagner! Get it? Trump is a NAZI. Here Wile E. goes off track a little. Wagner is associated with Hitler and German Nazism, which is not the same as the Fascism of Mussolini. But why ruin a good fairy tale.]

The leaders of the Christian churches should no longer participate, even minimally, in anything that normalizes this presidency. Just as the otherwise praiseworthy career of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Vatican Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI, was forever stained by the photos of him with Mussolini signing the Lateran Treaties, so clerics who undertake normal, otherwise non-controversial dealings with President Trump risk the resulting photo becoming their legacy. Go ahead, put Cardinal Gasparri’s name into Google Images and on the very first row, you see him and Mussolini. [“forever tainted” because of a photo. I wonder if any of Wile E.’s heroes were photographed with the most aggressively pro-abortion president in history, Obama. Pope Francis, for example, has photos with Obama. Francis has photos with Robert Mugabe, too. Hey! Francis has photos with Pres. Trump!]

18 Responses to What has the Left been up to? A few examples.

Or maybe not so pernicious.
The gloves are almost off, along with the mask.
Fr Martín has been given a comfort zone.
Who will disrupt it ?
He also grossly twists scripture in his tweet – A tactic of the evil one.

Since God is the universal, first cause nothing in creation is outside the purview of his causal power. Nothing happens nor exists in the created order that is not somehow the result of God’s prime causality, except sin, which is solely attributable to the created, rational being who commits sin.

I wonder whether this assertion needs some refinement: “God foresees that some people will have this flaw or that defect or some problem or other. However, these very problems, while not willed by God, are foreseen by God as possible means by which people can reach the joy of heaven.”

So God merely foresees but doesn’t cause physical flaws or defects in creation? If that were true then there would be beings and aspects of being besides God whose being isn’t caused by God, which is contrary to faith and reason. Every form of being outside of God must be dependent upon God’s knowledge, will and power for its existence otherwise it wouldn’t exist. The reason sin is an exception to God’s causality is because sin has no being, therefore it cannot be caused by God.

But created substances, their natures, properties and accidents? All caused by God exactly the way they are. Someone born blind? Foreseen, willed and caused by God. A tree falling on somebody during a storm? Foreseen, willed and caused by God. To claim otherwise is to say that things happen, or come to be, without having their being caused by God as first and universal cause, but that is impossible.

We don’t know how same-sex attraction comes about. I don’t agree that it’s physically, genetically determined and fixed prior to birth. Regardless of how it comes about, the fact that it does come about must be foreseen, willed and caused by God otherwise it wouldn’t be a reality. That doesn’t mean homosexuality is intrinsically desirable any more than blindness is intrinsically desirable. But God did cause it to be in some sense, otherwise it wouldn’t exist.

Where have I gone wrong in my reasoning?

Thomists claim that God’s causality extends even to the meritorious, sanctifying acts that human beings freely choose, such that God by sufficient and efficacious graces causes us to act freely whenever we choose to do good, but without destroying our freedom with which we cooperate with God’s causal grace. (Hence salvation is entirely a free gift from God, not merited by human beings apart from God in any respect, not even in any free choice of the good apart from God’s causality. No one may boast in his own efforts because God causes our good free acts.) If Thomists are correct about God causing even the good free acts of created rational beings, then how can it be claimed that accidental characteristics of creatures such as blindness or homosexuality are not also caused by God? The reason why God would cause such things to be/exist is a separate question. I’m only getting at the fact that God does cause those things to be, so we can’t let God off the hook by saying that he allows such things to be or happen without causing them. God has to cause them to be or happen, otherwise they wouldn’t have being.

Regarding Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ calls for Democrats to harass and assault
members of the President’s administration, I find it telling that none of her fellow
Congressional Democrats are distancing themselves from her incitement. It appears
that they don’t disagree with her, they just find it politically disadvantageous to
join in… for now.

Former President Obama has considerable standing amongst his fellow Democrats,
and with a word could do much to curb the excesses of Waters, BLM, Antifa, and
others seeking to normalize the use of violence as a tool to achieve political ends.
Instead, from him we hear… *crickets*.
There is an old legal adage that “silence implies consent”. By refusing to explicitly
repudiate the increasing use of violence and incitement by elements of the left,
the Democrats consent to its normalization.

In re Martin: poor Robby George got snookered. See his sad apologia at http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/06/21846/ in which he acknowledges Martin’s mistake in promoting “pride” but George still refuses to draw the obvious conclusion: Martin like most liberal Jesuits isn’t stopped by the law of contradiction. That’s the nicest way to put it.

It’s odd how Fr. Martin tries to use the Sacred Scriptures to claim that God is pleased with homosexuality. Especially since the same book that includes the Psalm he quoted has numerous references to homosexuality that say the contrary, such as Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination,” or Romans 1:27: “the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy,” or 1Corinthians 6:9-10: “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God,” or many others.

@ arga, yes I think Robert George is underestimating Fr. James Martin’s craftiness and verbal deceptions. Fr. Martin acknowledging what Church teaching/doctrine is does not mean he believes such teaching is irreformable or true. Fr. Martin could affirm what the Church’s teaching is yet personally believe that the teaching is wrong and should be revised.

That leads to whether Fr. Martin believes such. George claims that Fr. Martin has said he does not reject Church teaching. I think that reads too much into what Fr. Martin actually stated: Fr. Martin said he does not challenge Church teaching, nor will he. Not publicly challenging Church teaching is not the same as not rejecting Church teaching (but keeping quiet about it in public). Even if Fr. Martin says he does not reject Church teaching, that still falls short of affirming Church teaching as true.

Until Fr. Martin explicitly states the following, I will continue to consider his views suspect: “I firmly believe and hold to be true all of the Catholic Church’s doctrines about human sexuality.” Fr. Martin has not said nor implied any such thing. He has said what the Church’s teaching is, where it comes from, the fact that the Church teaches it, and he has said he will not challenge it. Meanwhile he continues to post tweets such as what Fr. Z reproduced that imply views contrary to Catholic Faith. Why would someone who affirms Church doctrine even imply the opposite? Careful parsers of language can easily find wiggle room that Fr. Martin leaves himself for rejecting what the Church officially teaches (“at the present time”) by saying things the way he has said them and noting what he has never explicitly said, namely that he affirms Church teaching. Were he positively to affirm Church teaching instead of merely refusing to challenge it, he would lose his rock-star status among LGBTs and the Left immediately.

I hope everyone reads today’s Psalm (139), and remembers that God created them as they are, especially any LGBT youth who doubt this:

I suppose that Fr. Martin also wants those who are born blind or deaf, or born without a limb, or born with a cleft palate, or born with Trisomy 13, to also rejoice in being made in such wise as to have no need of correction. No need of surgery, or a prosthetic limb, no sirree, because by Golly Gee Whiz God made them that way!

I DESPERATELY wish I would have been at that restaurant when the HHS Secretary and her husband were so abominably harassed.

After the rage-shakes passed, I would’ve liked to have stood up, locked arms with those in my dining party (and anyone else in the place who cared to facilitate) forming a citizen’s human wall/shield and calmly, silently and slowly walked the hellions out of the restaurant.

It was appalling to me that NO ONE in that restaurant said or DID ANYTHING in defense of this woman and her husband who were being so ill treated…such inaction implies to the rebel rousers bystander complicity and emboldens them to louder and more disrespectful invective as is witnessed in the footage of the incident.

It is a consolation that it didn’t erupt into violence, as such protests can when left unchecked.

These “refugees” behave more like maurading hordes than like brothers and sisters in distress. seeking comfort.

What is good about this time in the history of the Church is that her enimies have come out of their crevices and dark recesses where they normally hide and we can now see them clearly for what they are as they stand boldly in the broad daylight.

Fr. Z wrote: “What has the Left been up to? They are becoming more radical and deranged.”

Indeed.

– One year after James Hodgkinson attempted to massacre the Republican Congressional softball team, a Democrat Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, incites Leftist violence against the Trump administration.

– From a June 22, 2017 news article on threats against 30 Republican congressmen:

“May 8: Wendi Wright, 35, was arrested after stalking Rep. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and trying to run him off the road. After pulling over, Wright “began to scream and strike the windows on Kustoff’s car and even reached inside the vehicle.”” Apparently she was enraged about Kustoff’s vote to repeal and replace nationalized healthcare.

– Then there are the thousands of incidents of Leftist assaults, arson, death threats, “Occupations,” campus assaults, at-home harassment, and property destruction of the last several years.

Fr. Z wrote: “The Left is on the move, almost as if being fueled and aimed by invisible hands and hissing whispers.”

Well, John Zmirak asks in a June 18, 2017 article: “Is today’s Far Left Possessed?”

An excerpt, in which Zmirak refers to Dostoevsky’s “The Possessed”:

“…here’s what happens in that novel: A band of youthful “nihilists” emerge in a sleepy provincial town. They have no positive program for reform, or even revolution. Instead, they focus solely on tearing down what’s around them — everything from the family to the church, from private property to linear modes of rational thought. They’ve decided that the world as it really exists is so hopelessly tainted and evil, that only “pure” destruction can offer the clean slate needed to start again…Remember that Lebanon, Yugoslavia, and Venezuela were each once peaceful vacation spots.”

Zmirak closes with this:

“We must use the ordered force of law to protect ourselves and our institutions. But we can’t let them tempt us into sharing their spiritual disorder. They must be rebuked and restrained. But they also deserve our pity. Something deep inside them even hungers for our prayers.”

– Some recent perspective on the current mayhem might be found in the Anti-Police Movement, the 2011 Occupy movement, the 2011 events in Wisconsin against Gov. Scott Walker and numerous Republican legislators, and the attacks against supporters of Pres. Bush after the 2000 election. Michelle Malkin documented numerous Leftist attacks in a 2005 book:

“The acting deputy secretary of homeland security issued a memo Saturday [June 23, 2018] warning staffers that “there may be a heightened threat” against them…This assessment is based on specific and credible threats that have been levied against certain DHS employees and a sharp increase in the overall number of general threats against DHS employees — although the veracity of each threat varies,” Claire M. Grady said. “In addition, over the last few days, thousands of employees have had their personally identifiable information publically [sic] released on social media.”

Ironically, in April 2009 the (newly-elected) Obama DHS warned about the dangers of “Right-wing Extremism” and military veterans. Some sort of an apology was later issued.

However, from a 2009 FoxNews interview: “It wasn’t an apology in my view,” said Pete Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom. “It was one of those non-apology apologies. She was sorry that veterans were offended. She should either apologize for the content of the report as it stands or they should rewrite the report and reissue it.”

It’s rather remarkable how the Left these days, such as MSW in Fr. Z’s post above, continuously attempt to label as Nazis those Americans who prefer limited government, the Constitution and the 1st and 2nd Amendments, halting abortion, etc.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party engages in street violence when it loses elections, weaponizes certain elements of the Federal government against their opponents when they are in power, and glorifies the killing of “undesirable” babies. The Democrat Party also has a zeal for: controlling what adults and children eat and drink, nationalizing health care and energy, politicizing the family, transforming the news and entertainment industries into socialist propaganda mills, and removing God from the public square.

Some things never change. Similar to the national socialists (Nazis) and the international socialists (Communists) the Democrat Party, with occasional exceptions, despises both Israel and the Catholic Church.

I suppose one could make the case that the Pope should never have relinquished all claims to the Papal States, but still, I never knew Cardinal Gasparri — or anybody else in the Vatican — was “forever tainted” by the Lateran Treaties.

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